Denver stopped and sighed. This was the part of the story she loved.
She was coming to it now,and she loved it because it was all about herself; but she hated it too because it made her feel like abill was owing somewhere and she, Denver, had to pay it. But who she owed or what to pay it witheluded her.
Now, watching Beloved's alert and hungry face, how she took in every word, askingquestions about the color of things and their size, her downright craving to know, Denver began tosee what she was saying and not just to hear it: there is this nineteen-year-old slave girl — a yearolder than her self — walking through the dark woods to get to her children who are far away. Sheis tired, scared maybe, and maybe even lost.
Most of all she is by herself and inside her is anotherbaby she has to think about too. Behind her dogs, perhaps; guns probably; and certainly mossyteeth. She is not so afraid at night because she is the color of it, but in the day every sound is a shotor a tracker's quiet step.
Denver was seeing it now and feeling it — through Beloved. Feeling howit must have felt to her mother. Seeing how it must have looked. And the more fine points shemade, the more detail she provided, the more Beloved liked it. So she anticipated the questions bygiving blood to the scraps her mother and grandmother had told herwand a heartbeat. Themonologue became, iri fact, a duet as they lay down together, Denver nursing Beloved's interestlike a lover whose pleasure was to overfeed the loved. The dark quilt with two orange patches wasthere with them because Beloved wanted it near her when she slept. It was smelling like grass andfeeling like hands — the unrested hands of busy women: dry, warm, prickly. Denver spoke,Beloved listened, and the two did the best they could to create what really happened, how it reallywas, something only Sethe knew because she alone had the mind for it and the time afterward toshape it: the quality of Amy's voice, her breath like burning wood. The quick-change weather up inthose hills — -cool at night, hot in the day, sudden fog. How recklessly she behaved with thiswhitegirlNa recklessness born of desperation and encouraged by Amy's fugitive eyes and hertenderhearted mouth.